plainman007 if your sure you've picked one up with a fault and it's new you'll be able to change it or get it fixed through the manufacturers warranty but it would be beneficial if you posted some test shots at different f-stops and preferably taken on a tripod to avoid any camera shake. f8 seems to be that lenses sweet spot according to the Flickr groups, they also say it's quite soft when it's wide open. As Westcoast says using a wide angle takes some getting used to.

_________________"I'm playing all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order" - Eric Morecambe________________________________________D7000 and too many lenses.

West Coast > I didnt say all their products were 50% bad copies. Ive learned, only now that this particular lens had an issue with dishing out soft pictures. It was reported on the net as a quality control issue with only this product.

Your 'elvis is alive' anology apart, but arent even we discussing on the net. Not everything on the net can be just despised as nonsensical. Im sure most of us found camera labs forum via google. It depends on what you search for. And what i searched for was relevant and i found a thread of 257 reviews from customers who bought it. Heres the link...

If you do read it youll find out that there are many happy (lucky) customers who got a good copy. But there are equally large number of professionals there who got bad copies of this lens. And a large number of them who had to ask for replacements and then got a good copy. If it boils down to usage technique, how come the very next day most of these people got their replacements they were able to shoot discernibly sharper pics and be happy about it.

Now even im able to shoot sharp pics with this, but only above f9 or so. And even then after a certain distance theres softness.

Remember the amazon reviews link ive given above is from all people who've bought it and then reviewed it. Im sure people spending quite some money on an UWA lens are not novices with a point and shoot camera.

Sigma itself has tested these return lenses and replaced them with proper ones which means they screwed up on the quality control for this one.

So what are you saying ? Because you and others got lucky (or putting it vice versa, a lesser few got unlucky) the unlucky ones are supposed to feel proud that several people like you are happy with it and go on ? Because your happy with your lens and you got a good copy that doesnt make my faulty lens a right thing to do to a customer.

Its a fantastic lens. If you got a good unit. You get a new car some things dont suit you, you live with it as everything cant be perfect. But if the damn car wont do even 10 miles an hour then why get a car, you can walk.

Last edited by plainman007 on Mon Jun 20, 2011 7:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Just to the right of the Facebook icon above your image is a little downward arrow, select this and it'll drop down an option to grab the link. Make sure its on BBCode and the size you want to post, select it and past it here. There's no need to put image tags around it. I think you should post in the forum rather than send to me as I'm not that experienced myself.

_________________"I'm playing all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order" - Eric Morecambe________________________________________D7000 and too many lenses.

Please look at it with an unbiased opinion and let me know if this amount of softness is normal and my lens is ok. Or if you own the same lens and usually get much sharper results than this at these kind of apertures.

The retailer has accepted to give me a refund if the unit is really a dud. So id really like to know for sure, so as to be fair and square.

I really don't have access to a monitor that can be trusted to pass judgment on a lens. My iPad is as good as it gets, for now. Moreover, my eyeglass prescription needs to be updated. I may be unable to perceive softness that others will see. Some of your images appear quite good and clear. I do see what appears to be substantial, uneven distortion along the top of image 033, but ultra-wide lenses tend to have a certain amount of distortion away from the center. I am unsure what would be considered acceptable on a third-party UWA zoom.

My point of comparison is my Canon 10-22mm EF-S.

I will look further at your Flickr images when I can see them on a better monitor.